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Puritan Peter Wentworth Went to the Tower

Dan Graves, MSL

Twenty times or more, as Peter Wentworth walked near the House of
Commons, he told himself that he must not give the speech he was
carrying. He would surely go to prison. But every time, his conscience,
fortified by scripture, replied that he must speak up. Three years ago,
Queen Elizabeth I had ordered the last Parliament to keep its nose out
of the affairs of the Church of England, which she headed. Parliament,
largely Puritan, ignored her and took up three religious bills. The
queen dissolved Parliament.

On this day, February 8, 1575, Parliament
finally met again. The queen had packed the commons by restoring certain
old boroughs that the crown controlled. Although Peter was elected from
one of these, the Puritans no longer had a majority.

Peter saw the queen's actions as dangerous to the liberty of
Parliament. As soon as the first bill was read, Peter shot to his feet.
Throwing caution to the winds, he pulled out his speech and began to
read it.

"Mr. Speaker, I find written in a little volume these words in
effect: 'Sweet is the name of liberty, but the thing itself a value
beyond all inestimable treasure.' " He urged Parliament to protect its
freedom, the most precious thing in the kingdom.

He deplored the way rumors of the queen's pleasure or displeasure
were used to kill bills or to push them. We all make mistakes,
he reminded the other members. Even the noble queen. Frightened,
Parliament silenced Peter and hustled him out. In those days kings and
queens of England had much greater power than now; Parliament trembled
at the royal wrath. A Parliamentary committee questioned Peter and sent
him to the Tower of London. He was there for over a month and had to
apologize before he was allowed back into Parliament.

For his outspoken defense of Parliament's rights and his demand that
the queen settle the succession question before she died (she had no
children), Peter went to prison several more times. The last time, his
wife was jailed with him. When Peter died in 1596 at the age of 73, he
was still in the tower. He had refused to back down or to be silenced.
Although he must have seemed a failure to himself and his
contemporaries, he is now recognized as a brave champion of the
liberties that Parliament eventually won.

Bibliography:

Neale, J. E. Queen Elizabeth. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday, 1957.

Stephenson, Carl and Marcham, Frederick George, eds. and trans.
Sources of English Constitutional History; A Selection of Documents
from A.D. 600 to the Present. New York: Harper & Row, 1937.